


Three Little Words

by waitingtobedistributed



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, F/M, Light Angst, Post-The Final Problem, Sherlolly - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-11-21 15:45:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11360550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waitingtobedistributed/pseuds/waitingtobedistributed
Summary: Because once they'd said I love you, what else was there left to say?Five times Sherlock and Molly couldn't say the words they wanted to, and one time they could. (Or, a love affair conducted in three word sentences.)





	Three Little Words

**Author's Note:**

  * For [glitterkitty4ever](https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitterkitty4ever/gifts).



> For @glitterkitty4ever on tumblr, just because.

**1.**

At the end of the longest of long days, one when he almost – _almost_ – lost every single person he truly loves, he tells her, “Take care, Molly.”

He’s exhausted, that much is obvious. Not just Mary’s death (she suspects he’s still in shock – he vibrates with palpable grief), or his sister’s games, but something clawing beneath his skin like an electrical current searching for a means of discharge. There’s a hint of rawness around his eyes, and she knows he’s cried today. Molly recognises the signs. She’s been crying too.

If he came here to apologise, then he’s changed his mind. Since he showed up half an hour ago with what she thinks may be a team of Mycroft’s men, he hasn’t uttered a word until just a moment ago.

Still, he watches her. A lion protecting his pride, she supposes. He turns away every time she catches him doing it. Quiet rage is evident in every line of his body; maybe something else too – suppression, withdrawal – a battle readiness she’s seen him affect before.

She could push him, ask if he meant it, or if that realisation in his voice was just an echo of her too hopeful heart’s longing to hear those words from his lips. Instead she lets him go – not home to Baker Street, maybe to Mycroft or John’s, she doesn’t ask – and allows the pretence that she isn’t so shattered inside that she thinks this time her heart won’t mend. It’s not his fault. He just can’t. She’s going to have to accept that.

“And you, Sherlock,” she tells him before he disappears into the night.

**2.**

“Milk, one sugar.”

His vibrato voice cuts deep into parts of her that she fights to keep hidden. Molly shivers, lying to herself that the lab is too cold today; resolutely, she decides, it is not his voice or his starlight soft eyes on her. It’s not the way his hand shakes or the way his bottom lip protrudes, wounded. Or even the unhappy timbre of his address. It’s not the way he smells of leather and musk, or of her bed. Not even is it the memory of the way he used to wrap himself around her in the night, before –

Before.

It’s the cold, definitely just the cold.

The cup is slid across her work bench toward her, and when she wraps her hand around it their fingers brush. Though she rushes to pull hers away, his lingers, and a moment of silence stretches out between them, one where she’s sure he can hear her heart beating only for him.

They haven’t spoken since the night of the phone call from Sherrinford and today’s not going to be it either. They just can’t seem to find their way. Those three words have come between them and now nothing can ever be the same.

She’d resigned herself to it long ago; how much she loved him was an equal quantity to how much he didn’t love her. So she bargained with herself, settled for what they had, but now they’ve lost even that.

Every encounter passes like this, a few words, then something heavy and unspoken settles between them, and then … nothing. 

It takes Lestrade blustering through the doors, urging Sherlock to hurry up, to snap them both out of it.

With a voiceless sigh, he turns away and leaves her there, alone.

Molly tells the now empty room, “See you later.”

**3.**

The inquest into Case 3789-246 is heard at a Cabinet meeting, held behind closed doors. It will never be part of Public Record. Molly will be called on to give her evidence of that day, but only after she hears John and the Holmes family give theirs.

She had no idea, the extent of the terror, none at all.

Before Sherlock is excused, a distinguished older woman, blonde and very elegant, asks him in a kind voice why he thinks his sister chose Doctor Hooper – she was, after all, the only one of Eurus’ subjects that day who was actually connected to the Holmes family.

For a long time he thinks, then standing to leave, he says with hot ash in his voice, “To destroy me.”

Molly’s chest shudders and her throat aches with the weight of his words. She would never have made him say those words if she’d known about the gun, the coffin. Never. Never.

He walks by her seat on his way out of the room and she catches his hand as he passes. He stares at their entwined fingers, a questioning look in his eyes.

Once upon a time these casual touches were so commonplace that she barely noticed them. But not now, not since –

They used to mean friendship, closeness, affection. Love. Now they mean nothing. Nothing and everything, all at once.

Every orbit around each other is carefully choreographed, these days, to mitigate the risk of contact. It gets harder to do with every passing day. That longing to reach out, to feel his skin against hers, it overwhelms Molly, sometimes.

With their hands still joined she tells him, “I’m so sorry.”

It’s like a dam has broken, it’s too much to bear. Sherlock falls to his knees, buries his face in her neck and cries for the first time since he remembered Victor.

They don’t notice the room emptying around them. They are together, safe in each other’s arms. Nothing else matters.

 

**4.**

“You almost died.”

Molly turns, switches on her bedside lamp to find a pale and tired Sherlock standing in the doorway of her room, looking as though he’s not sure if he’s allowed to be there.

So she sits up, pulls the covers on his side of the bed back and pats the empty space beside her.

The Detective casts aside his coat and jacket, toes off his shoes, climbs into her bed.

The light is turned off again and they hold hands in the dark.

“But I didn’t,” she whispers.

 

**5.**

She wakes in his arms with no memory of how they’ve ended up wrapped around each other. He lies half on top of her, still dressed, his eye lashes fluttering softly against her cheek, his hand stroking over her back, her neck, into her hair.

His breath is hot on her skin, then her lips.

When he presses her down into the pillow she doesn’t stop him. He’s gentle, tentative perhaps, but it’s still the most erotic kiss she’s ever had. He moans softly in the back of his throat when she catches his lip between her teeth. Molly untangles their legs and takes him into the cradle of her thighs, the evidence of his need is hard against her belly.

“I shouldn’t have,” he breaks the kiss that’s taken her by surprise, but despite his words it’s a desire for more she sees in his eyes.

For a moment all she can do is grin, then she realises he’s waiting for reassurance that waking her in the middle of the night just to snog her senseless isn’t at all unwelcome.

“Yes, you should,” Molly takes his mouth, feels his smile against her lips as she unbuttons his shirt and pulls him down.

 

**\+ 1.**

They’re both nervous, but it’s alright, this time they’ll have each other to fall back on. Neither of them will be alone ever again.

He takes her hand.

She smiles at her groom.

“I, Sherlock Holmes…” he says

“…do take thee...” his bride answers.  

 


End file.
